


collapse // ascend

by imperiality



Series: Hope . . Have (Works Inspired by Batmorphy) [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Light Angst, No Plot/Plotless, Prose Poem, blade of marmora mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2019-02-05 00:31:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12782994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imperiality/pseuds/imperiality
Summary: Is Keith falling into Allura or running into herIs Keith running to Allura, or away from her





	collapse // ascend

**Author's Note:**

> The third part is here!!! I really wanted this to be up before today, but it's here now!!  
> [ My inspiration](https://batmorphy.tumblr.com/post/167092796464/misunderstanding).  
> ((I think maybe... I'm getting more of a handle on this romance thing? Maybe? Y'all have to give me your thoughts I've always been wonky with this introspection thing :P ))

Keith could _choke_. Keith would rather choke, he’d rather his breath hitch, he’d rather his breath catch. Keith would rather smother down his own air then let Allura do it for him. Her arm at his neck is his first warning. The dare in her eyes is the second. He doesn’t risk moving, if he should exhaust all of her already-thin grace.

Keith thought Allura would’ve been happy about his selflessness. About his initiative. About his fervor. He assumed he would only get the highest exaltations from her for the way he’s been hunting after Lotor, justice, victory. Why must her wrath instead befall him? He’s been looking so hard! He’s been giving so much!

All of his being moves forward and towards the war effort. He wakes to the war. He breathes in the war. He dreams of war. (He longs for peace.)

He would _rather_ let himself be screwed over than let Lance think he has no place. Then ask Allura for “his” lion back. For Shiro to concede Voltron’s reins again. He’d screw himself over before he let anyone say he couldn’t give. 

He can be sensitive. He can. He can be intuitive. He can! He is right, he _is!_

_Allura, don’t you see it! Voltron doesn’t need me now. I can step aside if I can’t step out. The Blades need me. And you have to let me go._

But she still raises her arm to his neck, and he’ll choke on his very words. He’ll gag on the brittleness of her glare. The thin line of his own lips.

He’ll choke on Allura’s dare- so loud so loud- as she says to him,

_Tell me why you can be trusted anymore. Whose are you, anymore?_

Where do you belong?

At that Keith is surprised. She usually waits much longer for the truth to turn its bitter head.

Keith has no answer for her in any case. He wanted to trust himself. He wanted to be hers. He wanted to be Red’s. He wanted to be Voltron’s, but he’ll turn his head from bitter to content for what he’s gotten over what he’s wanted. He’ll turn his head, if only to leave a different aftertaste in his mouth that isn’t so oiled with skewed vindication.

He slinks away from Allura, but his retreats lose their tactfulness more and more. (He wishes he didn’t think “don’t turn your back to your enemies” every time he left her. She isn’t an enemy. He hasn’t made himself an enemy to her. Yet. He hopes.)

He keeps retreating. Allura needs needs needs him to stop running away. With each conversation he leaves, Allura feels a new string of her heart shorted.

Then Keith returns from his Blade missions. Maybe not quite safe. Definitely not “sound”, but his return is enough for Allura. She sees his burdened face and frame, and lets it be enough! (Her immaturity lets her pay his retreats in turn.) With barely a head nod she’ll greet him- and.

Keith has let this go on too long. They need to stop leaving each other without ivory hellos. Silver goodbyes.

His gravelly voice wraps its burnt fingers around Allura’s graying heart, as his nicked hands wrap their taut fingers around her slender wrist. She swears, with just a grasp of his hand he can jump-start and hot-wire her fried heart again.

But who would she be if she ever made anything easy for him? Allura refuses another “hello” or “welcome back” to Keith. So he grips her wrist tighter. He turns her to him, and this time, he dares _her_ to retreat.

 _I’ve had enough of this, Allura.  
_ In the other direction, she’ll exhale.

_Enough of what._

And he’ll nearly forget his temper, tempted to throw down her arm in belligerence. Her silent beseeching keeps him in check. He’ll repeat, jostling her arm,

_I’m tired of this. This circling. This instability. I can’t take it anymore, Allura. Do you still want me? Red still refuses to take me. Does Voltron even still need me?_

Allura will slowly, ever so incrementally turn his way. He’ll release her hand. She’ll say in reply,

_I don’t want you, Keith._

He’ll stare plainly.

I need you.

Well that’s just perfect! Keith is needed! How beautiful! How nice it is to be showered in necessity and desire! He can really tell it in the way Lance’s eyes only gaze testier and testier at Keith. It’s really shown in the way Hunk and Pidge and Matt and Shiro are always alone together, or off without Keith. When was the last time he was even invited to share in their company, because this need is _overwhelming_ if distance makes the heart grow fonder.

_I can tell just how much you need me every time you turn away._

So Keith leaves. Again.

Allura sighs. Again.

How does she makes his place known to Keith? How does she share the depths of her love without exhausting herself? Yes, Keith is a paladin of Voltron and a Blade of Marmora. His lion ferocity and double-edged tongue are enough to prove it. But he is much more than both. But all he needs to _be_ is himself. 

What he really needs? is peace.

Allura has to _has to_ clarify. 

She’ll lay him down on a lounge-room couch, his bed her bed, or the observation deck itself. (Then, Allura’s voice will compensate for the cold tile floors. Or, her voice will make him sweat over plush down sheets.)

How many times have they had this conversation? She swears, she’s near exhausted the entirety of the English language making his worth known. Each iteration becomes a new translation of entreating out her mouth. Her words are becoming the recipes to something just barely more substantial than the air it takes to say them. 

If she, in her own power, could take the spear of her entreating and _devour_ Keith’s despair? 

He would already be wholly consumed.

She lays an arm over his, leans her chest over his, leans her head towards his and translates once again.

_I want this to stop, too._

And for both their sakes, Keith will forget to pretend he doesn’t know exactly what she means.

_I don’t know how._

But Keith has a bad habit of saying things Allura already knows far too well. _You have to stop. Just stop, Keith. Let yourself breathe. Put down your dagger. Put down your knife. Put down your burdens. Come back home._

He wants to. He wants to so bad.

_Are you it for me, Allura? Are you saying come back to you?_

She would say yes, if she were his to come back to in the first place. If she were his to begin with. And she wants to be. She wants to be so bad. For now, the only real imparting she’ll leave him with is her razor petitioning.

 _I’m saying that you can let yourself rest. That your place can be with the Blades, your place can be with your father, your place can be here on the Castle of Lions. Your place can be back in your bloody desert shack for all it matters. What matters is that your_ family _is here, with Voltron, with us._

And Keith will reach up a hand and say _I think I’ve lost family a long time ago._

And Allura will reach down a hand to his knee and say, _You’re wrong. You’ve only now just_ found _it._

Sometimes they fall asleep just like that. With not even a jacket or a scarf to spare, they’ll huddle together for warmth if they sleep on the deck’s harsh floor. On their beds, Keith will curl cling and wrap himself never close enough to Allura to be satisfied. 

Now, Allura knows she encouraged Keith to rest, but this wasn’t the “rest” she was envisioning. For every morning he wakes, he’s in the training room before she can remake her bed. He’s with the Blades before she can finish breakfast. He’s sending her in a tailspin before she can even get to her lion.

She makes him rest for himself. “Encouragement” is no longer in the equation. Tearing off his hood, yanking out his knife and shoving him down, she says _now peace be_ ** _with_** _you_. And together they rest.

Well.

Allura sits kneeling. Keith lays his head on her lap in disgruntled enervation. He asks _why this again._

She thought that would have been obvious by now.

 _Keith, Keith._ She combs her fingers through his hair. _We’re going to do this again. We’re going to do this again and again, and we’re going to keep doing it until you understand rest._

He understands rest well enough!

_Evidently not since we have to keep having this conversation!_

They keep having this conversation because she wants to, he says petulantly.

 _We keep having this conversation because your physicality is not wired to_ slow down.

But there’s so much to do!

 _And you don’t think I know that?_ She pauses her combing. _There’s so much to do, Keith. There’s so much._

And he-

_Needs to slow down. Please._

He rests enough. He promises. He rests when he’s asleep.

_Oh, that’s precious. You sleep so little as it is._

Well then he’ll sleep when he’s dead.

_Keep running then, Keith. Keep not resting and you’ll get there sooner._

His distaste is torn from him. He fully settles in Allura’s lap and wraps his arms around himself. Even if they were sitting next to each other or laying together as they usually do, he still wouldn’t have pulled it from himself to meet her eyes.

He wants to rest. He _does_ want it, he wants to rest he wants some peace he _needs to slow down_!

 _So why can’t you_? she’ll whisper.

Keith is scared. That’s why he can’t.

_Of what are you afraid?_

Or- maybe not quite scared. He’s not scared of rest, that’s not it. It’s just that when Allura tells him to rest, he… he can’t.

“I can’t rest, Allura. I can’t _rest, I can’t_ ** _rest_**. I can’t slow down! Oh God I want to slow down but I can’t I can’t I can’t I-“

 _Breathe. If you can’t rest yet, you can breathe. Breathe with me, Keith. Follow me._ ” She sets her hand straight above his solar plexus. _Good, good very good. I should have realized sooner._

Realized what, that the human the Galra the _panic_ in him isn’t physically capable of even a single moment of peace?

 _No, not that_ she pats his chest. _I should have realized how long the process will take. No one suddenly grasps peace, nor is peace ever thrust upon you. This is a process. I severely, and to your own expense, damningly underestimated how long it would be._

Keith finally opens the dam for his sigh to flood over his lips. He makes her promise:

_Please stay with me, and slow me down for as long as it’ll take._

So their nights together become more silent. They become more languid. Keith holds Allura now, and realizes he can yield himself before she has to.

Maybe he wasn’t being most forthcoming with her, however.

Keith _is_ scared.

He’s terrified.

For what if he keeps going going going too fast. What if he _doesn’t_ slow down? What if the neon glow of Allura’s eyes keep blurring right past him. What if he never lets himself be stricken by them.

He’d rather be stricken by his Jupiter-gravity weight of ire.

When he brings himself back to the sensation of Allura’s arms around him, her heartbeat rhythmic and smooth against him, he thinks he can ascend again.

He thinks he can forget the what-ifs for now.

He thinks he can let himself dream of slow. 

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to hit me up on [my Tumblr!](https://chickadeecrowns.tumblr.com)


End file.
